Continued from previous page farmed out to state and local facilities that are ill equipped to handle them and are now living alongside, and influencing, small-time crooks who would previously have not rubbed elbows with drug kingpins and assassins.“Everyone gets mixed up,” Hope said. Some of the most aggressive groups have taken advantage of this situation to build their jailhouse empires. As Alejandro Gertz, Mexico’s former secretary of public security, recently told the Mexico City daily El Universal, “Organized crime has penetrated many of the jails in the country.”
The danger has been furthered by a growing sense of impunity, as the boldest crimes largely go unpunished. The most notorious prison escape came in 2001, when El Chapo Guzmán fled a maximum-security prison called Puente Grande. He remains on the loose. While a significant number of those who left prison in mass escapes have been re-apprehended, many others remain on the outside. Official responses to jailhouse illegality often target the guards, though without doing much to break the cycle of impunity inside the prison system.According to Hope, criminals have “realized that they can escape, they can commit acts of violence.” Getting them to un-learn that lesson will require fundamental-
ly breaking the get-out-of-jail-for-free cycle.
PRISONS AND POLITICAL WILL One obvious solution is more jails. Here, President Calderón’s record is spotty. More than two years ago, his administration announced plans to create 12 new prison facilities, including a “super-max” prison in Veracruz that will house thousands of inmates. But several of the dozen are just the conclusion of already-existing projects, and it’s not clear that even with the new facilities up and running, there will be enough room for all of the federal prisoners, should the aggressive approach to organized crime continue.
SAVE $5 on Tickets with code SAVE! FEB. FEB. 8 - 12 15 - 20 Offer valid on all performances except Opening Night at each venue. Offer excludes group sale orders, VIP and Front Row seats. No double discounts.
There are 3 ways to redeem your savings: 1. Bring this ad in person to the Arena Box Offices 2. Call 1-800-551-SEAT and mention code SAVE 3. Log on to Ticketmaster.com and enter code SAVE
The Washington Diplomat
Patrick Corcoran is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.
Baltimore SAVE $5 Ticket Prices: t t D.C. SAVE $5 Ticket Prices: t
www.disneyonice.com
184960
Page 14
Mexican authorities have also used extraditions to lesson their burden. Under Calderón, the number of prisoners extradited to the United States has ticked up from previous administrations, with 94 in 2010, according to the Congressional Research Service. (In contrast, during the last full year in office of his predecessor,Vicente Fox, just 42 people were extradited.) That figure includes some of the most notorious inmates in Mexico, such as former Gulf cartel boss Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, who ran his operation from a maximum-security prison until his 2007 extradition. Nonetheless, further improvements are clearly necessary to reverse the stubborn trend. Penal reform legislation has been bandied about by opinion page columnists and politicians alike, but with so many other pressing security issues, fixing the prisons isn’t an area where any politician is going to invest a great deal of capital.“[Prison] reform hasn’t found its champion,” Hope noted. The lack of interest, however, belies the importance of improving the penitentiary system.“Everyone has an interest in this,” Hope said. “A great deal of the nation’s crime comes from prisons.” The United States could also play a larger role in fostering improvement in Mexico’s prisons. Despite a multi-billion dollar flow of aid to Mexico under the Merida Initiative, the U.S. government has not placed much emphasis on the state of Mexico’s prisons.“While mentioned, the prison system has been decidedly second fiddle in U.S. security assistance to Mexico, and in ongoing U.S.-Mexico cooperation more generally,” said Shannon O’Neil, the Latin American expert at the Council on Foreign Relations.“The focus has been on the military, federal police force and justice system.Whether for equipment or training, these areas dominate.” O’Neil said that the lack of U.S. interest has quite a lot to do with the absence of a “champion” in Mexico.“Mexico, despite the rhetoric, has yet to make a big push to fundamentally reform and professionalize its prison system,” she said. “Until the political will [backed by resources] exists domestically, there is little the United States can do.” A final element of an improved penal system is a more effective trial process. Mexico’s judicial system is infamous for the long wait periods between arrest and trial. Indeed, Hope says that 40 percent of the population behind bars has not even been sentenced; reducing that lag time could mean less overpopulation and a more manageable group of prisoners. Hope also says that Mexico should seek alternative avenues for punishment, such as parole and electronic bracelets. Many of the people occupying space behind bars today are simply there because they were unable to afford a fine, and were given a prison sentence instead. Special drug courts and prisons that would expedite trials and separate drug traffickers from ordinary criminals have also long been proposed, as has a greater emphasis on rehabilitation to free up prison space. Of course, enduring changes to the prison system require more money, but it’s clear that cash alone won’t be enough. In fact, a report from the lower house of the Mexican Congress recently determined that under Calderón, government spending on prisons nearly quadrupled, and yet the problem has worsened. As former security secretary Gertz told El Universal: “They think that by handing over more money to the jails the problem will be resolved, and it’s not like that.”
Get the latest diplomatic news. Sign up at www.washdiplomat.com.
January 2012